This invention relates to a bottle cooling device. More particularly, the invention is directed to a device for cooling liquid-filled bottles, such as beer bottles.
Many bottled beverages are better drunk cold, especially beer, and while it is conventional to cool them in a refrigerator, it has usually been the practice when going outdoors to place the bottles in a portable ice cooler containing one or more ice packs so as to keep the contents of the bottles cold. Such ice coolers are generally heavy and awkward to carry around, in addition to taking considerable space.
Various devices have already been proposed for cooling bottles. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,365,911, there is described a bottle cooling device comprising a stand provided with an inclined tray of W-like cross-section supporting a pair of hollow capsules containing a liquid refrigerant material. Each capsule has an inner arcuate surface adapted to engage a circumferential portion of the bottle to be cooled, which extends from the bottom of the bottle to its neck. Such a cooling device is particularly suited for wine bottles since the arrangment of the capsules enables the label on the front of the bottle to be displayed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,324,111, on the other hand, proposes a freezing gel containment structure comprising a plurality of adjacent tubes secured together in edgewise relationship and each separately filled with freezing gel. In one embodiment, this structure is sandwiched between two sheets of flexible material which are sealed together adjacent their edges to form a refrigerant panel. Two such panels may then be secured to a circular base for receiving therebetween a bottle to be cooled.
Thus, the bottle cooling devices proposed so far can only be applied to one bottle at a time. It would of course be highly desirable to have a bottle cooling device designed for a pack of bottles, such as a 6-pack of beer bottles contained in a case, and which could also be conveniently fitted in the case itself for easy transportation thereof while keeping the bottles cold at any time.